Russia should not expect the West to lift its sanctions while this situation creates fairly good conditions for developing domestic agriculture

MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/. Russia should not expect the West to lift its sanctions while this situation creates fairly good conditions for developing domestic agriculture, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a government meeting on Thursday.

"There should be no fear as no one will lift the sanctions. I have said recently that the West is taking all decisions to make the sanctions permanent and are codifying them in their legislation. That is why, this creates fairly good conditions for developing agriculture," Medvedev said.

The Russian premier thus responded to Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachyov’s fears that Russian businesses, which had not been modernized, would be losing competition to Western rivals, after the sanctions against Russia were lifted.